Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Will global warming and climate change finally get the respect it warrants?...we are sceptical

Although the United States has been dragging its collective feet on global warming and climate change for too long, the Obama administration has been moving along, behind the scenes, raising the mpg (miles per gallon) rate of gasoline needed to power automobiles, capping the construction of coal-fired electricity plants, and yesterday, releasing a report that puts the issue squarely in the present, as opposed to some far-off future problem.

The Republicans, lead by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, continue to sing the worn-out chorus that 'it will make no difference what the U.S. does if other countries do nothing about global warming and climate change' to their brain-dead constituents, continuing a well-established pattern of denial and avoidance.

However, it was to eight television weather forecasters from around the country that the administration made their pitch yesterday, believing not only in the trust Americans place in those talking heads, but also in their capacity to put the story out in each and every broadcast. Some have even begun to include climate forecasts in their daily weather broadcasts, as a way to grow public awareness and public responsibility for measures that can and will reduce the carbon imprint we leave on the planet.

Canada, on the other hand, continues to lag behind the United States, with Ottawa clinging to the cliché that unless and until India and China sign on to some international pact, there is no need to take global warming and climate change seriously. And reports today indicate that our fossil fuel exports have jumped some 900%, making us one of the premier "petro" economies in the world, something that environmentalists cringe to learn, as the appetite for fossil fuels continues seemingly unabated. Here is the way the New York Times framed the story about the existing evidence of deep and profound changes that are already observable, and the conclusions that the administration's report draws from those changes:

The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more common and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects.

Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.

“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the scientists declared in a major new report assessing the situation in the United States.

“Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced,” the report continued. “Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, andthe kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods.” ( By Justin Gillis, U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods, New York Times, May 6, 2014)Miami, a city facing a threatened rise in sea levels has already begun constructing a massive underground pumping system that, its civic officials predict will prevent one inch of sea water from invading Miami streets. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, before leaving office, was already making noises, following hurricane Sandy, about that city's need to build retaining walls to ward off rising sea levels resulting from global warming and climate change.
Yet, there are few other regions that have taken the risks seriously enough to begin to pour public money into insurance measures that would address our collective and obviously impending crisis.
As the White House Spokesman told Gwen Ifill on PBS, 'the science that supports the growing climate change crisis is already established, although in the list of priorities, American people continue to put it fairly low on their list.'
This space has dedicated considerable time and energy toward raising the alarm about this issue that not only will define the futures of our grandchildren, but also the legacy of their grandparents, insofar as our willingness to make the sacrifices needed to at least ward off the worst effects of the most nasty scenario.
While we all drag our rainbow-coloured boxes to the curb each week, in order to facilitate some form of recycling, in order to put less pressure on our landfill sites, we continue to produce much more packaging than our needs require, in order to better accommodate the corporate interests who wish to make those millions of sales. We also continue to drive cars that gulp gasoline, when we all know that the technology for environmentally friendly vehicles has been available for decades, although purchased and hidden by the auto companies. We also continue to consider public policy based on fossil fuels to be necessary in both the short and long terms, in order to preserve "jobs" and a rising GDP, when we also know that the jobs necessary for an environmentally secure future would result in even more employment and even better GDP prospects.
We are a civilization with our eyes securely focused on our immediate and often titillating wants, as if we had no responsibility for those who will inherit both our gifts and our mistakes.
Maybe it is time for us to begin to think about what the planet will look like, smell like, and feel like if we do nothing to curb our deeply embedded appetites and began to consider the longer term futures. It may do nothing for our immediate reputations; yet it may well offer lives of some worth and safety to our offspring and their's.